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The unanswered question of the Melbourne plane crash

Five people died in the Essendon DFO plane crash, and how it occurred is now known.

Five people died in the Essendon DFO plane crash, and how it occurred is now known. Photo: Getty

Aviation experts are baffled as to what caused Tuesday’s fatal plane crash in Melbourne, as investigators continue to sift through the wreckage searching for clues.

Four American tourists on a golfing trip of a lifetime died alongside Australian pilot Max Quartermain when their Beechcraft B200 Super King Air crashed shortly after take-off.

The plane, which was headed for King Island off Tasmania’s north coast, crashed into the roof of the nearby Essendon DFO shopping centre and exploded into flames.

The DFO centre is closed indefinitely while the investigation is conducted, while Essendon Airport – where the plane took off from – reopened Thursday morning.

The black box flight recorder from the plane is expected to arrive at Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) headquarters on Thursday.

essendon plane crash

Pilot Max Quartermain had decades of flying experience.

The ATSB heightened conjecture on Wednesday when it discovered several “interesting facets” to the accident, as specialists questioned what caused the “high performance” aircraft to fail.

“That’s the big question, there’s no reason whatsoever why that plane could not have kept going,” aviation journalist Geoffrey Thomas told The New Daily.

“There should be no issue whatsoever, even if it’s fully loaded (full with passengers, fuel or cargo) with maintaining flight on one engine.”

According to the ABC, the plane had flown just five hours since its last maintenance check in January.

Mr Quartermain – who has been described as a highly respected and trusted pilot – reported a loss of power to the plane’s left engine on takeoff.

He declared an emergency and reported the engine failure to Air Traffic Control, before the plane veered to the left and crashed.

While investigations are still ongoing, Mr Thomas said there were several potential causes for the aircraft to lose power and go down.

Going through the checklist for this particular situation, he said a pilot must ‘feather’ the left engine/propeller, retract the undercarriage, and put the nose down for a more levelled flight.

“But for some reason none of those happened, it appears as though the pilot was not able to do some of these things or there were other things happening that prevented this,” he said.

“He should have been able to continue flying.”

Both Mr Thomas and CQ University accident investigation leader Geoffrey Dell believe the operability of the plane’s auto-feathering feature, and how it was feathered, are the most crucial aspects of the crash.

“Maybe the engine that failed did not auto-feather, or could not be feathered by the pilot … If the failed engine didn’t feather correctly, it could have resulted in the windmilling propeller producing significant additional drag and seriously affecting aircraft controllability,” Mr Dell wrote.

Essendon plane crash

If the auto-feather feature was disabled it could have affected the pilot’s ability to fly. Photo: AAP

It’s not yet known if auto-feather was disabled, or could not be feathered by the pilot.

The sequence of events of the mayday call were also brought into question by Mr Thomas.

“When you’re in a situation when you’ve got a problem, the three things you have to do are aviate – in other words, fly the plane – navigate – fly it in the right direction – and then communicate the problem,” he said.

“It appears (he) communicated the problem almost instantaneously.”

It is unknown what communication was made during the mayday call.

‘Several factors leap out at you’: ATSB

The Australian Transit Safety Bureau’s chief commissioner Greg Hood said the agency had already found several clues to the crash.

“With any accident, particularly aviation accidents, we find that initially there are several factors that leap out at you,” Mr Hood told reporters on Wednesday.

Essendon plane crash

ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood said there were several “interesting facets” to the crash. Photo: Getty

“So whilst in the initial walk-through yesterday, the initial examination of records, we have discovered some interesting facets, we really need to gather all the evidence and conduct the analysis before we can say what caused the accident.

“I realise there is a lot of speculation.”

Mr Hood would not give any further detail but confirmed the plane is able to take off safely with one engine.

The ATSB said it would release a preliminary report about the crash in 27 days.

Family on the way

Family members of the Americans killed in the crash are believed to be making their way to Melbourne, a friend of the victims told AAP.

The victims’ wives were in Melbourne at the time.

Bruce Mills, the vice president of a close-knit Texan golfing community in which Mr De Haven, Mr Munsch and Mr Washburn lived, said family members were on their way to Melbourne to provide support.

“Can you imagine the shock of getting that news?” Mr Mills said.

The wife of pilot Max Quartermain was also “really struggling”, her sister Irene Gould said.

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